Review Essays: Bully Nation and Our Current Predicament

The publication of Bully Nation in 2016 could not have been more timely. Its release came as the United States witnessed acts of domestic terrorism and mass shootings, a rash of video-recorded police killings of unarmed African American men, and the successful presidential bid of a candidate whose campaign engaged in unprecedented acts of intimidation and personal abuse of political rivals, including threats of incarceration and political assassination of his opponent in the general election. These events constitute a challenge not only to the very political fabric of the United States but perhaps also to ingrained habits of analysis and thought of social scientists. In this respect, Bully Nation is an ambitious book that attempts to widen the contours of current public discussions of the forms of coercion and intimidation popularly called “bullying” in the United States that the authors contend are limited all too often to childhood, the institutional settings of primary and secondary schools, and the narrow parameters of the psychological sciences.